Rome or Dallas
by bhut
Summary: Or: why messing with heads of ex-Hydra agents is a dumb idea. Some spoilers for "Frenemy".


**Rome or Dallas?**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners._

Skye, or Daisy, or Mary-Sue Poots, (seriously, when she had acquired so many names?) is not a very happy girl. By all standards she should be, considering that Grant is gone for good and she is free, but she is not.

Well, Grant isn't gone as in dead, Coulson told her that he – and Kara Lynn – are going to have their memories wiped out and made into ordinary people instead...and Skye doesn't like it. True, Grant was a monster, or, more accurately, a killer robot, but wiping out his memory? That does not seem to be an appropriate response either, especially not releasing him back into the wild either after that. This sort of action is just inviting a disaster, at least to Skye, for if Ward ever gets his memories back...it's up to anyone's guess who'll get hurt in the fallout.

And as for Kara Lynn...Skye is not sure if she likes the other woman, well, liked her being the proper tense and all, but nevertheless, the facts speak for themselves: first Hydra under Whitehall brainwashed her, and now S.H.I.E.L.D., under Coulson, did the same. Where is the moral high ground in that? S.H.I.E.L.D. was supposed to have some sort of moral superiority over Hydra, didn't it?

...Of course, S.H.I.E.L.D. is all over the place nowadays, suffering from its own problems as Gonzales wants to do it one way, Coulson another, Fury and Hill have their own opinions, and Tony Stark is muddying the waters too. The brainwashing decision just might have slipped through the cracks...

"_Of course_ we slipped to the cracks," Kara Lynn says in her wry style, as she sits next to Skye on the left. "If we had to have S.H.I.E.L.D. alter our minds temporarily, so be it."

...Skye pushes her unfinished beer away and forces her heart back into her chest, out of her mouth. (Not literally – her anatomy may be part alien now, but not that much alien). She also pulls out S.H.I.E.L.D.'s means of sobering up quickly and swallows the pills down. Then she looks around – Kara Lynn Palamas is still on her left and Grant is still on her right.

"You aren't figments of my drunken imagination," Skye says quietly, "what is going on? Did not T.A.H.I.T.I.-"

"Skye, we're two ex-agents of Hydra, among other things," Grant says patiently, "so we have a very good idea of how brainwashing works. This, in turn, means, that between the two of us we were able to make back-up copies of our memories, mental selves, whatever, and download them back earlier tonight once S.H.I.E.L.D. dropped us back at our place."

"You can put memories back? You can save and download them?" Skye stares. "That's scientifically impossible-"

"So speaks the alien girl in our midst," Kara Lynn says wryly. "To many people, _you're_ scientifically impossible!"

"Okay," Skye gives the other woman this one. "So, now what? Why are you here, anyways?"

"We're leaving the place for a while – it's just too S.H.I.E.L.D. for our tastes," Grant shrugs. "We're going abroad – I'm thinking Rome, Kara Lynn would rather go to Dallas, Texas. Want to come with us and be a voice of reason in our arguments?"

"What, just the three of us?" Skye replies, in part stalling for time, but only in part.

"Four – Kara Lynn has persuaded Hunter to come along already," Grant replies. "Hence the 'voice of reason' bit. So, you want to come?"

Skye is divided. She still doesn't trust Grant, isn't sure if the two of them will ever be able to trust each other again, if they will even be friends, let along anything more. This part wants to reject him and all of his offers outright.

And yet, another part of Skye is kind of flattered that 'her robot' (only he isn't a robot anymore, and she isn't sure that if he even wants to be hers to begin with) has made her offer; she doesn't deny that she was clearly unhappy with the thought of him gone for good, and now that he's back, well...

"I'll go," she decides on a compromise, "but only for a little while, and if there will be any hanky-panky or sex, I'm gone." She pauses. "And we're going to Dallas, too."

"What is this, a conspiracy?" Grant groans. "Everyone wants to go to Texas here. Ah well, three out of four is the voice of majority so I agree. Off to Dallas we go."

Skye blinks. She did not expect Grant to be that easy going. She is not sure how she feels about it either, so instead, she just grabs her purse (yes, she has a purse now, as well as a tablet to put into it) and follows the other two to their trailer. Lance is already waiting there, looking the same way as he usually does.

"No sex," Kara Lynn tells him sadly, sounding more like a child than a mature woman of roughly Skye's age. "Skye said so."

"That's okay," Lance shrugs, as he ruffles Kara Lynn's hair, "I'm sure that tomorrow will be a new day."

Skye says nothing. She knows that she feels jealous of the feelings that this pair has towards each other – their relationship appears to be so simple and innocent...unlike whatever she and Grant have ended up with. Yet now is not the time to bring it up, so she just smiles fondly at this interaction, and goes into the trailer, followed by Grant. Shortly afterwards the car rides off into the sunset, towards new adventures.

PS: Melinda May, riding her motorcycle, follows them at a safe distance. She is sure that Grant, and maybe some of the others, have noticed her doing this already – but since so far they have done nothing, May is content with the status quo too. After all – tomorrow is a new day with new adventures.

End


End file.
